Home cooked dog food, calculated

Cook for your dog. We’ll do the math.

Tell us about your dog. Petcare builds a recipe from everyday foods, gives every ingredient in grams, checks it against 43 nutrient targets, and names the exact supplements that close any gap.

Free to join. Petcare opens to early access owners first.

Energy from AAHA and WSAVA guidance
Targets from NRC and FEDIAF guidelines
Food data from USDA

The problem with most recipes

200 recipes checked. 5 complete.

Veterinary nutritionists at UC Davis checked 200 published recipes for home cooked dog food, 129 of them written by veterinarians. Only 5 supplied every essential nutrient at the levels the National Research Council recommends.

Shortfalls rarely show on the plate. They build slowly, which is exactly why they are worth calculating.

Stockman J, Fascetti AJ, Kass PH, Larsen JA. Evaluation of recipes of home prepared maintenance diets for dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 2013. Read the abstract

complete short of at least one essential nutrient

How it works

Three steps from your kitchen.

Tell us about your dog

Age, weight, activity, body shape, health concerns, allergies and budget. Plain questions, no jargon.
We solve the recipe

An optimiser picks up to eight everyday foods from 46 and the grams of each, keeps daily energy within 3 percent of your dog’s need, and checks all 43 nutrient targets.
You weigh, cook and add

Grams per day for every food, plus a short supplement plan for what food cannot cover, such as calcium and iodine.

Real output, shown in full

Three dogs. Three real recipes.

Every number below came straight out of the Petcare engine for the dog described. Nothing is rounded for effect and nothing is left out. Photos are illustrative.

Luna

4 years
Labrador
28 kg
Spayed
Daily walks

Joints and mobility

Layer heights follow each food's share of the day's grams.

Calculated Analysis

Luna, 4 years, Labrador, 28 kg

Daily energy: 1,403 kcal
Target for Luna: 1,363 kcal

Grams per day. Weigh raw, and grains dry.

Egg	281 g
Kale	160 g
Duck	159 g
Beef shank	119 g
Quinoa	116 g
Spinach	75 g
Salmon	18 g
Lamb Liver	11 g
Total	939 g

Energy from

Nutrient targets met by food39 of 43

Add daily

Calcium carbonate3.9 g
Or finely ground eggshell. This covers the daily calcium need and brings the calcium to phosphorus ratio to about 1.2.
Salt1/8 teaspoon
About 802 mg, for chloride and sodium.
Dog multivitamin1 dose
Look for at least Iodine 360 µg, Vitamin E 2.5 mg a day.

Calculated 28 September 2026 from USDA food data against NRC and FEDIAF targets. Not veterinary advice.

Milo

5 years
13.5 kg
Goal 11.5 kg
Neutered

Losing 2 kg

Weight loss feeds resting energy at the target weight. A safe pace is one to two percent of body weight per week; weigh weekly and recheck with your vet.

Layer heights follow each food's share of the day's grams.

Calculated Analysis

Milo, 5 years, 13.5 kg, Goal 11.5 kg

Daily energy: 450 kcal
Target for Milo: 437 kcal

Grams per day. Weigh raw, and grains dry.

Broccoli	146 g
Egg	136 g
Chicken breast	131 g
Strawberry	54 g
Spinach	43 g
Oysters	16 g
Lamb Liver	9.4 g
Salmon	5.2 g
Total	541 g

Energy from

Nutrient targets met by food37 of 43

Add daily

Calcium carbonate1.7 g
Or finely ground eggshell. This covers the daily calcium need and brings the calcium to phosphorus ratio to about 1.2.
Salt1/16 teaspoon
About 412 mg, for chloride and sodium.
Dog multivitamin1 dose
Look for at least Iodine 185 µg, Thiamin (B1) 0.16 mg, Vitamin E 1.9 mg, Zinc 1.3 mg a day.

Calculated 28 September 2026 from USDA food data against NRC and FEDIAF targets. Not veterinary advice.

Rosie

10 years
20 kg
Mostly resting
Spayed

Joints, digestion, no chicken

Layer heights follow each food's share of the day's grams.

Calculated Analysis

Rosie, 10 years, 20 kg, Mostly resting

Daily energy: 952 kcal
Target for Rosie: 927 kcal

Grams per day. Weigh raw, and grains dry.

Duck	312 g
Beef shank	152 g
Kale	126 g
Watermelon	78 g
Cauliflower	69 g
Sunflower seed	17 g
Salmon	15 g
Beef Liver	11 g
Total	780 g

Energy from

Nutrient targets met by food38 of 43

Add daily

Calcium carbonate2.9 g
Or finely ground eggshell. This covers the daily calcium need and brings the calcium to phosphorus ratio to about 1.2.
Salt1/8 teaspoon
About 623 mg, for chloride and sodium.
Dog multivitamin1 dose
Look for at least Choline 282 mg, Iodine 280 µg, Vitamin D3 3.8 µg a day.

Calculated 28 September 2026 from USDA food data against NRC and FEDIAF targets. Not veterinary advice.

The science

We show our working.

Most feeding tools ask you to trust them. Petcare publishes its formulas, its targets and every correction it made to the food data.

Energy

70 × kg^0.75

Resting energy, from the formula in AAHA and WSAVA guidance, then multiplied for life stage and activity: about 1.6 for a typical neutered adult, up to 3 for a young puppy.

Nutrients

43 targets a day

Drawn from the NRC and FEDIAF nutrient guidelines for dogs and scaled to your dog’s metabolic weight, from protein and ten amino acids to iodine and vitamin K. We are checking every value against the primary sources.

Food data

46 foods

Full USDA composition for each. Water, protein, fat, carbohydrate and ash must add up before a food can enter a recipe, and two foods failed. One “sweet potato” turned out to be a dry potato gratin mix with 38 times the sodium. All three were removed, and every correction is logged.

Checks

150+ automated tests

Every rule in the engine is guarded by a test that runs on every change: energy within 3 percent, safe upper limits, allergies removed, iodine never taken from salt, and no recipe ever passed off as veterinary advice.

All 43 targets, checked on every recipe

Protein and amino acids 13

Protein
Tryptophan
Threonine
Isoleucine
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Methionine and Cystine
Phenylalanine
Phenylalanine and Tyrosine
Valine
Arginine
Histidine

Fats 6

Fat
Linoleic acid (omega 6)
Alpha linolenic acid (omega 3)
EPA (omega 3)
DHA (omega 3)
EPA and DHA (omega 3)

Minerals 12

Calcium
Iron
Magnesium
Phosphorus
Potassium
Sodium
Zinc
Copper
Manganese
Selenium
Chloride
Iodine

Vitamins 12

Thiamin (B1)
Riboflavin
Niacin
Pantothenic acid
Vitamin B6
Folate
Choline
Vitamin B12
Vitamin A
Vitamin E
Vitamin D3
Vitamin K

Life stages

Every stage has its own math.

A chocolate puppy looking up — Puppies ×3 to ×2
About three times resting energy under four months, and about twice it until the first birthday. Growth targets are in progress, so puppy recipes come flagged for a vet check.

A pale adult dog smiling in warm light — Adults ×1.6
A typical neutered adult on daily walks needs about 1.6 times resting energy. An intact adult needs about 1.8.

A dog running through shallow water — Active dogs ×2 to ×3
Very active dogs need about twice their resting energy. Working and sport dogs can need three times.

A golden dog resting its chin on the floor — Seniors ×1.4
Older dogs that rest more drop to about 1.4 times resting energy. Portions shrink while nutrient targets stay.

Losing weight: the recipe feeds resting energy at the target weight, for a safe loss of 1 to 2 percent a week. Pregnant or nursing: energy needs climb steeply with litter size, so these recipes need your vet’s check.

Built around your dog

Concerns, allergies and the never list.

Tell us about any of these 10 concerns and the recipe leans toward ingredients commonly recommended for them, and leaves out the ones to avoid. Allergies remove every matching food before anything is calculated.

Joints and mobility
Heart health
Immune support
Eye health
Digestion
Weight management
Skin and coat
Urinary health
Dental health
Pancreas

Petcare does not treat disease. For kidney, liver or other medical diets, work with your vet or a board certified veterinary nutritionist.

For brands, clinics and nutritionists

Put the engine inside your product.

The same engine runs behind a simple API and an embeddable widget. Send a dog’s profile and get back a formulated recipe as JSON: grams, energy, all 43 nutrients and the supplement plan.

Fresh food brands Turn your quiz into a formulated plan, every recipe checked against the same targets.
Veterinary clinics Hand owners a home cooked plan with the working shown, ready for your review.
Nutritionists Draft in seconds, then adjust with every constraint visible.
Pet stores and apps Add a feeding calculator your customers can trust.

Request API access Read the API reference

Response excerpt for Luna

{
  "dog_name": "Luna",
  "daily_kcal": 1403.3,
  "total_grams": 939.0,
  "lines": [
    {"display_name": "Egg", "grams": 281.0},
    {"display_name": "Kale", "grams": 160.0},
    {"display_name": "Duck", "grams": 159.0},
    {"display_name": "Beef shank", "grams": 119.0},
    ...
  ],
  "supplement_plan": [
    {"item": "Calcium carbonate or finely ground eggshell",
     "quantity": 3933.0, "unit": "mg"},
    {"item": "Salt",
     "quantity": 802.0, "unit": "mg"},
    ...
  ]
}

A woman hugging her dachshund with her eyes closed

Why we built Petcare

Love, measured.

Petcare started in 2022 as a research prototype by our team: turn a dog’s profile into a home cooked recipe. When we rebuilt it in 2026, the first check we ran found that its energy formula gave growing puppies less than half the calories they need.

That finding set the rules for everything after it. Every formula now traces to published veterinary guidance. Every food’s data is checked before it can enter a recipe. Every rule is guarded by an automated test.

We are Cognition Sync, a small team of engineers and data scientists. We built Petcare for people who cook for their dogs because they love them, and want to know the bowl is right.

We show our working.
We name what food cannot cover.
We never invent a review.

Reviews

No reviews yet. We won’t write our own.

Petcare opened its early access list in September 2026. The first reviews on this page will come from real owners who used it, shared with their permission. Until then, the recipes above are our evidence: real output, shown in full.

Join as a founding owner

Questions

Before you cook.

Is Petcare veterinary advice?

No. Petcare is software that calculates recipes from published guidelines. It does not diagnose or treat anything. If your dog has a medical condition, is pregnant or nursing, or is still growing, have the recipe checked by your vet before you rely on it.

Which standards do the recipes follow?

Daily energy starts from the resting energy formula used in AAHA and WSAVA guidance, 70 times body weight in kilograms to the power of 0.75, then adjusts for life stage and activity. Nutrient targets draw on the National Research Council's Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats and on the FEDIAF nutritional guidelines, and we are reviewing every value against those primary sources. Food composition comes from USDA FoodData Central.

Why does every recipe need supplements?

Some nutrients are hard or impossible to reach with everyday food. Meat and eggs are rich in phosphorus but poor in calcium, and almost no ordinary food carries enough iodine. Recipes written by veterinary nutritionists close these with a measured supplement, and so does Petcare: every plan gives the exact calcium, and the vitamin and mineral amounts to look for on a label.

Can Petcare handle allergies?

Yes. Tell us what your dog reacts to and every matching ingredient is removed before the recipe is built. Groups such as grain or fish work too. If allergies leave too little to build a balanced recipe, Petcare says so instead of guessing.

Does it work for cats?

Not yet. Cats need far more protein, plus taurine, and deserve their own set of targets. Cats are next on our list, and early access members will hear first.

What does it cost?

Joining the early access list is free. We will publish pricing before Petcare opens, and nobody is charged without choosing a plan.

Can my business use the engine?

Yes. Fresh food brands, veterinary clinics, nutritionists and pet stores can use the same engine through an API or an embeddable widget. Request access and we will set up a pilot with you.

Early access

Your dog’s first recipe is a few questions away.

Cook for your dog. We’ll do the math.

200 recipes checked. 5 complete.

Three steps from your kitchen.

Tell us about your dog

We solve the recipe

You weigh, cook and add

Three dogs. Three real recipes.

Luna

Calculated Analysis

Milo

Calculated Analysis

Rosie

Calculated Analysis

We show our working.

Energy

Nutrients

Food data

Checks

All 43 targets, checked on every recipe

Protein and amino acids 13

Fats 6

Minerals 12

Vitamins 12

Every stage has its own math.

Puppies ×3 to ×2

Adults ×1.6

Active dogs ×2 to ×3

Seniors ×1.4

Concerns, allergies and the never list.

Put the engine inside your product.

Love, measured.

No reviews yet. We won’t write our own.

Before you cook.

Your dog’s first recipe is a few questions away.